Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! condemns the University of Manchester’s (UoM) attempt to shut down our filmshow and discussion of ‘Leila Khaled: Hijacker’ for Palestinian Land day. Martin Conway, the Deputy Secretary of the university, contacted the Catholic Chaplaincy directly to force the cancellation of our booking. No attempt to contact Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! was made and no reason for this attack has been given publicly.

UoM has joined a growing list of British institutions protecting its connections to apartheid Israel. It is also caving in to Zionist pressure groups like the Northwest Friends of Israel (NWFoI), which engaged in racist attacks on Palestine supporters at a recent BDS meeting and is exerting pressure on the university itself behind the scenes. What has become clear is that UoM leaders take more notice of the fascist agenda of Zionist thugs than the political expression of its own students. Attempts by Conway and other university bureaucrats to cancel Israeli Apartheid Week events and to sanction two students for a pro-Palestine banner drop are political acts, backing up the ruling class attack on political opposition under the guise of the anti-Muslim Prevent strategy. By attempting to shutting down pro-Palestinian campaigns UoM is actively supporting the status quo of apartheid in occupied Palestine.

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! students will be supporting the BDS society’s demonstration at UoM on 29 March to demand an end to these attacks. We encourage all anti-racists and Palestine supporters to join us and take action:

Wednesday 29 March

Defend students' right to support Palestine, protest against UoM management sanctions on BDS campaigners